A roast might not seem like an obvious candidate for easy cooking. A preparation we turn to for late winter as well as early spring gatherings like Easter, it involves wrestling a large hunk of meat into the oven with the hopes of creating a tender, juicy centerpiece to be sliced and admired by those who gather around.

Despite all that pressure, I'm here to tell you roasts are easy to make. They can even handle the five-ingredient treatment, meaning you can make a roast with five ingredients or fewer. That doesn't include salt and pepper, which you will need plenty of, but you don't need complicated spice rubs, marinades or sauces if you choose your meat or fish well and pay attention to the cooking temperature.

Roasting is a dry cooking method that's usually done at high heat to concentrate flavors and create browning, although oven temperatures can be as low as 300 degrees, depending on the cut.

We tend to think of roast meats in terms of a tender, leaner beef fillet or pork loin. While tougher cuts such as a chuck roast or brisket usually do better with braising and other wet-cooking methods, there are exceptions.

For example, you can roast corned beef, a salt-cured brisket, rather than give it the usual boil for a different - and I think improved - take on the St. Patrick's Day standard. Its brine helps it hold up well to long cooking in the oven at 350 degrees, but be sure to blanch the meat first in fresh water to remove excess salt.

To keep things simple, use the spice package that comes with the corned beef to make a mustard glaze. After the roast has been in the oven for a while, add cabbage, onions and carrots to the pan to cook along with the meat and absorb its juices.

Pork shoulder is one of my favorite roasts, and it's definitely not a lean cut. The meat is marbled with fat, which keeps it tender and juicy even after low and slow cooking at 300 degrees. For my latest version, I combined orange zest with ground bay leaves in a rub to perfume the meat, and let it rest overnight. I put it on a bed of celery, orange wedges and shallots left in large pieces so they don't overcook while the meat finishes.

Serve the roasted vegetables and orange with the meat, along with an optional celery heart salad tossed with orange juice and the roast's cooking juices.

Leg of lamb, a more traditional cut for roasting, is almost always seasoned with garlic and some kind of fresh herb as well as salt and pepper; it has so much natural flavor that it doesn't need much more than that.

In the accompanying recipe, use cloves from a few heads of garlic to line the pan and prop up the roast during the initial cooking. Once softened, the roasted garlic goes into a tapenade with cured black olives, more fresh thyme and olive oil. The roast comes out of the oven golden brown and dripping with juices.

When it comes to roasting fish, larger, thicker fish fillets do fine in the oven, but whole fish is an even better bet - keeping the fish on the bone preserves more flavor and moisture. Grocery stores with good seafood counters and Asian fish markets sell whole fish such as branzino or striped bass, and will clean and scale it for you. All that's left to do is to stuff the fish with aromatics, season it and then roast it on high heat.

I based my roasted fish recipe on a traditional Chinese whole fish cooked with ginger and green onions, using green garlic instead of scallions and a 425-degree oven rather than a bamboo steamer.

The leafy tops from the green garlic and wedges of ginger fill the cavities of the fish during roasting, and the mild green garlic bulbs and more ginger go into a sizzling oil that you pour over the cooked fillets to serve.

So wrestle those roasts in the oven, and don't worry too much about 10-spice mixtures. Just a few herbs and fresh seasonings will do you fine.

Marbled with fat and turning tender after low-and-slow cooking, pork shoulder (also sold as pork butt) is very forgiving. Here a mixture of orange zest, bay and salt and pepper perfumes the meat as it rests overnight. It's roasted with celery, shallots and orange wedges, which you serve alongside. You can use more celery, the zested orange, and some of the cooking juices, in the Celery Leaf Salad (recipe below).

Instructions: Remove the zest from 2 or 3 oranges with a Microplane until you have 2 tablespoons zest. (Use the oranges in another dish or the Celery Leaf Salad recipe below.)

In a spice grinder, pulverize 5 of the bay leaves and the black peppercorns, pulsing until the bay leaves are finely chopped. In small bowl, combine the zest with the ground spices and salt. Rub this mixture all over the pork roast, getting into all of its exposed surfaces, ending with the fat side. Place in a baking dish or other vessel, cover tightly and refrigerate at least 4 hours or up to 2 days.

To roast the pork: Preheat the oven to 300°. Bring the pork to room temperature and pat dry.

Cut the remaining orange into wedges. In a small roasting pan or 9- by 13-inch baking dish, spread the orange wedges, shallots, celery and remaining 2 bay leaves. Top with the pork roast, fat side up.

For medium, roast the pork until the internal temperature is 145° to 150° when inserting a thermometer in the thickest part of the meat, 2 1/4-2 1/2 hours (if you prefer it less pink, it can even go above 160° and still be juicy). Rotate the pan 180° after 1 hour to ensure even cooking.

Remove the pork roast to a cutting board and tent with foil 20-30 minutes. Strain the cooking liquid from the roasting pan to use in the Celery Leaf Salad and to serve with the roast.

Slice the roast and serve with the roasted oranges, shallots, celery and extra cooking juices.

Nutrition information: The calories and other nutrients absorbed from marinades vary and are difficult to estimate. Therefore, this recipe contains no analysis.

Wine pairing: This dish will go nicely with a Grenache or Pinot Noir, which complement the flavors of the pork.

Celery Leaf Salad

Serves 8 to 10

If you are making the Pork Shoulder With Oranges, Bay, Shallots & Celery, you can use the inner leaves and thinly sliced heart of the celery to make this garnish. Toss the celery with orange juice and some of the roast's cooking juices. Because celery has a strong flavor, a little of this salad goes a long way.

Instructions: Separate the tender celery heart leaves into bite-size pieces, and thinly slice the inner, pale-green stalks and the heart until you have 3 cups. Place in a medium bowl; keep cold.

Right before serving, toss the celery leaves and hearts with the cooking juices, orange juice to taste, and the vinegar. Season aggressively with salt and pepper, and serve with the pork roast.

Roast Corned Beef With Cabbage, Onions & Carrots

Serves 8 to 10

Rather than the traditional boil, in this recipe you roast the corned beef for a more concentrated flavor, then coat it with a glaze made of mustard and the spices that come with the roast. It's a good idea to blanch the corned beef in water to remove some of the salt solution used to brine the meat. For this roast, you don't even need to add salt and pepper.

4 pounds corned beef (with spice package)

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 large head cabbage, cut into 2-inch wedges

2 onions, peeled and quartered

3 large carrots, peeled and quartered

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350°.

Rinse the corned beef, reserving the spice packet, and place in a large pot; cover with 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil and drain. The finished roast will be on the salty side at this point; repeat boiling it again in clean water if you would like to remove more salt from the meat.

Meanwhile, crush the spice mixture that comes with the roast using a mortar and pestle or the back of a heavy pan. In a small bowl, combine the spice mixture with the mustard.

Place the corned beef in a 9- by 13-inch dish or a small roasting pan, fat side up. Spread the mustard mixture over the top. Add 1/2 cup hot water to the pan, cover with foil, and roast 45 minutes.

Using a carving fork and a pair of tongs, carefully transfer the corned beef to a platter. Line the roasting pan with the cabbage and as many of the onion and carrot pieces that will fit. Place the meat on top, surround it with the remaining vegetables, cover and return the pan to the oven.

Roast about 1 hour more, or until the meat has reached 170° in the thickest part of the roast. Uncover and continue to roast 15 minutes. Place the pan under the broiler until the top of the roast and the vegetables are golden, 4-5 minutes.

Let rest at least 10 minutes before carving. Thinly slice the roast and serve with the vegetables and some of the pan juices.

Wine pairing: Choose a lighter red, such as Barbera or a Loire-style Cabernet Franc, to match the beef's pungency.

Leg of Lamb With Garlic, Thyme & Black Olive Tapenade

Serves 4 to 6

Whole cloves of unpeeled garlic form a bed for a lamb roast, which is coated in chopped thyme, salt and pepper and studded with more garlic. When the garlic cloves are roasted until soft, you can use it in a tapenade made with black olives and more fresh thyme.

3 pounds bone-in leg of lamb, rolled and tied if necessary

3 heads garlic, with top 1/2 -inch of each head trimmed to expose tops of cloves

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh thyme

2 teaspoons kosher salt

-- Freshly ground pepper to taste

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2/3 cup oil-cured black olives, pitted

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 400°.

Using a boning knife, pierce the lamb all over so there are slits in the meat about every 2 inches.

Thinly slice 2 cloves of the garlic into slivers and insert the slivers into the slits in the meat. Rub the roast on all sides with half of the thyme, the salt and lots of pepper.

Separate the remaining garlic cloves, leaving the cloves unpeeled and discarding extra loose skin. Place the garlic cloves in a gratin or other baking dish just large enough to fit the lamb and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Place the roast atop the garlic.

Roast, uncovered, 30 minutes. Remove the roast from the pan, and stir the garlic. Return the lamb to the pan and continue roasting until the garlic is very tender, another 10-15 minutes. Remove the garlic from the pan and let it cool.

Turn the pan so the lamb cooks evenly and continue roasting the lamb until the internal temperature is 140° in the thickest part of the meat for medium-rare, about 1 hour 20 minutes total. (Note that the leg is made of many muscles that can measure temperatures differently.) Transfer to a cutting board, tent with foil, and let rest 20 minutes.

While the lamb rests, peel about two-thirds of the garlic or squeeze the cloves out of their skins, discarding any dry, overcooked cloves, and place in a food processor. (Save any remaining roasted garlic for another use.) Add the olives, any oil or drippings from the pan, the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil and the remaining 1 tablespoon thyme. Puree, adding 2-3 tablespoons of water to create a looser consistency.

Whole Roast Fish With Green Garlic & Ginger

Serves 4 to 6

This roast fish recipe takes inspiration from steamed whole fish seen in Chinese cooking, with a simple seasoning of garlic and ginger sizzled in oil. Using spring garlic, in stores now, gives you more flexibility because you can use the leafy tops to stuff the fish while it cooks, and then cook the more strongly flavored white part of the garlic to scatter over the cooked fish. Use any leftover green garlic in salad dressings, marinades or pasta sauces.

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 425°. Line a rimmed baking sheet large enough to fit both fish with aluminum foil, and grease the foil well with oil.

Chop the leafy green tops from the green garlic into 1/4-inch pieces to stuff the fish; set aside. Thinly slice the white part until you have 1/2 cup; set aside separately.

Rinse out the fish and pat dry. Season well inside and out with salt and pepper, then place in the middle of the prepared pan. Stuff the fish with the leafy garlic tops and the ginger slices, setting aside 1 or 2 small pieces of ginger for later. Drizzle the top of the fish with oil.

Roast the fish until the top fillet is firm and flakes easily when pricked with a fork, 25-30 minutes.

Transfer the fish to a platter, discarding the ginger, and let rest for a few minutes. Heat 1/2 cup vegetable oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. When very hot, add the reserved white part of the green garlic and the reserved ginger; cook until lightly browned, about 3 minutes.

Use a fork to fish some of the garlic out of the hot oil and scatter it over the cooked fish. Drizzle on a little bit of the hot oil and soy sauce to taste. Remove the fish fillets from the bone and serve immediately with the leafy green garlic tops and more of the oil and chopped garlic.

Due to the general nature of the recipe, there is no analysis.

Wine pairing: A relatively dry Riesling or Gewurztraminer will complement the flavors in this dish.